JALANDHAR: After Tarn Taran incident of beating a girl in full public view by the police, the act of attacking a dalit family in Kalyanpur village under Lambra police station during the night hours targeting village dalit Sarpanch Iqbal Singh and his wife Rajni brought shame to the Jalandharrural police.

Iqbal Singh along with more than 200 people of the village including women reached the circuit house to narrate wrath of the police they earned for protesting inhuman behaviour meted out to Kali at the hands of Lambra police.

Dr. Raj Kumar Verka, Vice Chairman of the National Commission for SC/ST in India recorded the statements of the Sarpanch, his wife and others. Kali told the commission that he was forced to drink urine in a leather shoe at the police station. He had gone there to make a complaint against a youth of the village who was chasing her mother with a dagger. Instead of extending an helping hand to him, he was forced to sit in the police station and detained for more than two days without any fault.

Dr. Verka chided the SSP Yurinder Singh Hayer saying that the offence to force any person to drink urine was non-bailable and if the police resort to such tactics to harass dalits, then the commission would have to take action on its own.

He directed the SSP to immediate lodge an FIR against the erring police officials and reports the matter with action taken report (ATR) to the commission with in seven days.

The SSP assured the commission that the erring police officials would not be spared.

Parkash Singh Garhdiwala, senior member of the State Commission for SC/ST also summoned the SSP and other police officials to seek explanation on the matter and directed the police authorities to take stern action the wrong doers.

Four policemen have been suspended for the brutal assault. The 23-year-old woman says she was harassed by the truck driver while returning from a wedding party.

Her family then decided to approach constables who they spotted on the road at Tarn Taran near Amritsar.

But, the woman says, instead of helping her, the policemen took a bribe from the driver and started beating her.

Despite the footage, a senior police officer tried to defend the cops involved. “I don’t think our cops did anything (wrong)… they were actually trying to intervene and stop the fight between two sides,” said Sukhbir Singh, who heads the local police station.

Some policemen said that the altercation began when constables tried to arrest the victim’s father, who was allegedly drunk and was misbehaving. They say the woman tried to stop her father from being taken away by the policemen. However, they agreed that even if that were the case, there was no justification for the police hitting her in retaliation.

The 23-year-old woman says she was harassed by the truck driver while returning from a wedding party.

Her family then decided to approach constables who they spotted on the road at Tarn Taran near Amritsar.

But, the woman says, instead of helping her, the policemen took a bribe from the driver and started beating her.

Despite the footage, a senior police officer tried to defend the cops involved. “I don’t think our cops did anything (wrong)… they were actually trying to intervene and stop the fight between two sides,” said Sukhbir Singh, who heads the local police station.

Some policemen said that the altercation began when constables tried to arrest the victim’s father, who was allegedly drunk and was misbehaving. They say the woman tried to stop her father from being taken away by the policemen. However, they agreed that even if that were the case, there was no justification for the police hitting her in retaliation.

Moga: In a shocking case in Moga in Punjab, the police have arrested a 26-year-old woman for falsely alleging that she was gangraped. According to the police, the charges leveled by the woman were motivated.

The woman, who works as a nurse, had claimed that she was abducted and drugged by a gang of four, including two women, while she was returning from Mohali after a job interview, following which she was gangraped.

Earlier, in another twist to the case, the police had claimed that the woman had been booked in 2012 on charges of injecting an HIV-infected needle into a woman with whose husband she was allegedly having an affair with.

The police had claimed that one of the two women accused of drugging the nurse and letting their male accomplices rape her was the same who claimed to have been infected with HIV. The other woman was her mother, said the police.

The 26-year-old woman claimed to have been gangraped and thrown on the Bathinda-Dabawali road on Sunday eveing. She said that they took her to a room, filmed and gangraped her.

After the murder of a police officerand assault on another policeman allegedly by its members recently, the party’s leaders and their supporters thrashed a local singer at a marriage party in the state.

Punjabi singer Subhash Sharma was thrashed at the wedding of a relative of senior SAD leader Balwant Singh Ramoowalia. Sharma alleged that he was beaten up by the party leaders for not performing at the function.

“There was a function of my friend who is a sitting MLA. He had organised a programme. Some people forced me to sing and when I refused I was thrashed badly. They also told me that they will see me,” Sharma alleged.

“I read in newspaper about misrule in Punjab and I confirm this today. I have not joined any political party. Earlier I was an Akali supporter, but now I don’t support it.”

“As a man and a voter I am saying that there is rowdy rule in Punjab,” he added blaming SAD for the growing incidents of violence in the state.

Earlier, a SAD activist had assaulted a constable in Gurdaspur district on December 8. The same day, nephews of an Akali leader opened fire in Muktsar district over a property dispute.

They fired several rounds at two people against whom they had a grudge.

Just a couple of days before these incidents an Akali leader had allegedly killed an assistant sub-inspector in Amritsar as the latter attempted to prevent his daughter from being harassed by the leader and his friends.

Ram Narayan Kumar, former director of SAFHR’s South Asian Orientation Course in Human Rights and Peace Studies, was the full time Director of the Understanding Impunity project.Kumar had been involved with human rights and democracy issues in the region since 1975 when he was imprisoned for 19 months for his vocal opposition to Indira Gandhi‘s Emergency regime that lasted till March 1977. Kumar’s work for justice and accountability in Punjab is widely recognized. A founder member of the Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab, which petitioned the Supreme Court in April 1995 for a comprehensive investigation on the matter of police abductions resulting in the secret cremations in Punjab, Kumar is the lead author of Reduced to Ashes

For almost a quarter of a century, he championed Sikh rights in Punjab through investigative journalism, historical research and uncompromising fight for State accountability. His landmark publication, Reduced to Ashes : TheInsurgency and Human Rights in Punjab, (SAFHR, 2003), which he co-author dwith colleagues on the Coordination Committee for Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP), of whihc I was a part as well for a year, is a meticulous documentation of over 600 cases of human rights abuse in Punjab. It led to charges being filed against police officials, but more importantly, it raised awareness of abuses in Punjab across the world. He is also the author of Sikh Unrest and the Indian State: Politics, personalities and historical retrospective (Ajanta Publications, New Delhi, 1997); The Sikh Struggle: Origin, Evolution and Present Phase (Chanakya Publications, Delhi, 1991) and [Terror in Punjab] Terror in Punjab : Narratives, Knowledge and Truth (Shipra Publications, Delhi, 2008).

Ram played a major role in all aspects of the movement for accountability in Punjab. For example, he worked with Jaswant Singh Khalra in exposing mass cremations of victims of disappearances and killings, he spearheaded the People’s Commission on Human Rights Violations as well as the Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab, and he contributed to all major litigation such as the petition to bring charges against KPS Gill for his role in Khalra’s murder and the Punjab mass cremations case.

“A forthright critic of state repression in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Northeast India, Nepal and other parts of the subcontinent, Kumar was a deeply committed fighter for human rights and accountability. Kumar’s work through SAFHR on impunity in the region was based not only on meticulous research and sharp insights, but also on profound empathy, compassion and an unwavering passion for social justice.“—Tapan Kumar Bose, South Asia Forum for Human Rights & Sushil Pyakurel, Accountability Watch Committee, Nepal.

Documentary by RamNnarayan Kumar, investigating the 50000 plus sikh members who have been mudered by the indian government in the genocide killing fields of punjab. note recently indian government have offered minimal compensation to some of the victims as an admission of guilt by no justice

A short clip of Interveiw with Ram Narayn Kumar on illegal cremations and Jaswant Singh Khalra

After food Minister KV Thomas revealed the waste of over 70,000 tons of wheat in Punjab in the last year alone TIMES NOW uncovered how official apathy continues to result in the waste of food grain. In a country where 23 crore people go hungry every day can we allow this criminal wastage?

In a country where millions go hungry every day, where food prices break the back of the common man, an estimated 231 million (23.1 crore) people in India go hungry every day, each minute, five Indians die of hunger – i.e., 7000 each day and 2.5 million people every year a bumper harvest is today rotting in godowns and the situation in Punjab is glaring at India.

‘66,306 tonne of the winter crop stored by state agencies in Punjab and 10,456 tonne in Haryana were rendered damaged/non-issuable in 2011-12′, said Food Minister KV Thomas.

With the union food ministry claiming that over 70,000 tonnes of wheat has been left to rot in the storage facilities across the state.

TIMES NOW revealed the shocking apathy that led to criminal waste of food grains. We traveled to two such godowns of the Punjab state Government agro, where wheat stocks face complete neglect.

A guard of one go-down in Dera village in Fategarh sahib said, â€œ4 lakh quintals of wheat has rotten completely. Some new stock was added here last year but that too has rotten now.â€

The guard on duty in another such go -down spilled the beans on the colossal waste of food grains over the years, where fresh stock was dumped without clearing the older harvest. The guard at the Punjab Agro go-down in Sirhind said, â€œThe fresh stock came last year. Else it has been lying here for 2-3 years and no one takes it. No one takes care of it.â€

The problem is not restricted to storage alone. At one of the largest grain markets of Asia traders allege that the government officials work at a tardy pace, doing nothing to save even the fresh harvest.

Even as Punjab is saddled with the food grain pile up the state government passes the buck to the Centre, blaming the Union Government for the massive crisis.

India’s food grain production may be at an all time high this year with numbers likely to touch 250 million tonnes, but if Punjab Govt and the Centre don’t wake up this precious grain that could feed millions will once again be left to rot another year. Maybe if they wake up now 2 and a half million people in India who die of hunger each year could just be saved.